Bear Found Near School Killed in Japan’s Yamagata Prefecture

The Yomiuri Shimbun

12:22 JST, November 17, 2025

YAMAGATA — A hunter culled a bear that was climbing a tree near a municipal junior high school in Tsuruoka, Yamagata Prefecture, on Monday.

According to the city government, a resident spotted the bear climbing a persimmon tree in a residential area of the city’s Inaoi district on Sunday afternoon. A member of a local hunter group on patrol found the animal in the neighborhood at around 6 a.m. on Monday and shot it. The bear is believed to have been a 70-centimeter-long cub and weighed about 8 kilograms.